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Ashby Canal


Ray T

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36 minutes ago, Idle Days said:

Seems like some back-pumping required?

 

That is as crazy as turning on the bilge pump. Yes it empties the boat of water but does not stop the leak. 

The answer is to fix the leaks

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I think Atherstone may have pumping capability but fundamentally every canal will have a degree of leakage, it’s not practical to make them 100% impermeable. That’s not to say there isn’t any specific leakage that could be fixed but I don’t think that’s the issue at hand.

 

The issue is one of prolonged dry weather on groundwater volumes and the effect of evaporation in hot weather on a canal that is only directly fed from natural water resources.
 

It won’t get solved until winter because groundwater levels will continue to fall until then. It seems there will need to be a careful balance in feeding the Coventry and Ashby without spreading the problem to the Oxford.

Edited by Captain Pegg
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21 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

I think Atherstone may have pumping capability but fundamentally every canal will have a degree of leakage, it’s not practical to make them 100% impermeable. That’s not to say there isn’t any specific leakage that could be fixed but I don’t think that’s the issue at hand.

 

The issue is one of prolonged dry weather on groundwater volumes and the effect of evaporation in hot weather on a canal that is only directly fed from natural water resources.
 

It won’t get solved until winter because groundwater levels will continue to fall until then. It seems there will need to be a careful balance in feeding the Coventry and Ashby without spreading the problem to the Oxford.

but the vlockies know that their is a problem at Atherstone. The gates leak. CRT have been and said that they have fixed it but according to the Vlockies there is a certain pound which still runs dry

 

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11 minutes ago, Tonka said:

but the vlockies know that their is a problem at Atherstone. The gates leak. CRT have been and said that they have fixed it but according to the Vlockies there is a certain pound which still runs dry

 

 

I've seen the pounds between locks 3 and 5 running low but the integrity of the long pound from Coventry is maintained by the seals of the gates on the top lock. Running water down to a low pound further on will use some water unnecessarily but probably not particularly significant in the context of the size of the pound above Atherstone. It's not a flight renowned for dry pounds as far as I know, and I've never encountered anything immediately impassable there.

 

There is something that is different this year which has tipped the balance and it seems that it's not leaky gates at Atherstone. When was the last time that these canals had water shortages? I don't think canals deserve sufficient public money that they are bulletproof in all conditions, but yes a maintenance regime to keep gates sensibly water tight is feasible.

 

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5 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

I've seen the pounds between locks 3 and 5 running low but the integrity of the long pound from Coventry is maintained by the seals of the gates on the top lock. Running water down to a low pound further on will use some water unnecessarily but probably not particularly significant in the context of the size of the pound above Atherstone. It's not a flight renowned for dry pounds as far as I know, and I've never encountered anything immediately impassable there.

 

There is something that is different this year which has tipped the balance and it seems that it's not leaky gates at Atherstone. When was the last time that these canals had water shortages? I don't think canals deserve sufficient public money that they are bulletproof in all conditions, but yes a maintenance regime to keep gates sensibly water tight is feasible.

 

 

Certainly the pound below Baddisley Wharf was very low 2 weeks ago. Nb Squire and I were stuck for at least 45 minutes as we tried to pass each over. Had to run water down from pound above untill the boats in the small marina started to lean. According to a boater there it has been like that for a couple of weeks

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In normal operation the not backpumped at Napton surplus water coming from Napton and Hillmorton, and which is not drawn down Calcutt, ends up in the Coventry to supplement the ground water etc.  The water has a long way to go to do this!

 

At the moment I suspect that evaporation, transpiration by trees and  leaks on the 'morton and Rugby pounds  are losing all of this water before it gets near Hawkesbury, so the Coventry Ashby pound is suffering.

 

Running water from the Oxford summit reservoirs is possible, but it will take a heck of a long time.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Tonka said:

That is as crazy as turning on the bilge pump. Yes it empties the boat of water but does not stop the leak. 

The answer is to fix the leaks

 

The biggest leaks are the locks, back-pumping does mitigate that loss source to some extent.

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2 hours ago, BEngo said:

In normal operation the not backpumped at Napton surplus water coming from Napton and Hillmorton, and which is not drawn down Calcutt, ends up in the Coventry to supplement the ground water etc.  The water has a long way to go to do this!

 

At the moment I suspect that evaporation, transpiration by trees and  leaks on the 'morton and Rugby pounds  are losing all of this water before it gets near Hawkesbury, so the Coventry Ashby pound is suffering.

 

Running water from the Oxford summit reservoirs is possible, but it will take a heck of a long time.

 

 

Lots of cows drinking our water,  kill them all and be vegan!

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6 hours ago, BEngo said:

In normal operation the not backpumped at Napton surplus water coming from Napton and Hillmorton, and which is not drawn down Calcutt, ends up in the Coventry to supplement the ground water etc.  The water has a long way to go to do this!

 

At the moment I suspect that evaporation, transpiration by trees and  leaks on the 'morton and Rugby pounds  are losing all of this water before it gets near Hawkesbury, so the Coventry Ashby pound is suffering.

 

Running water from the Oxford summit reservoirs is possible, but it will take a heck of a long time.

 

 

The amount of water lost due to evaporation is a lot more than people thing, I know by how much I have to top my pond up by. between 3 and 4" over the past 3 weeks and I don't have any leaking gates

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9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

The amount of water lost due to evaporation is a lot more than people thing, I know by how much I have to top my pond up by. between 3 and 4" over the past 3 weeks and I don't have any leaking gates

 

It's them bloody great crested newts. They are notorious for burrowing through pond liners so that they can get to construction sites... 😂🤣

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It's the lack of visiting boats on the canal. If the water level is low, less boats visit, especially the deep drafted ones. Boats displace water and raise the level, so the water level drops even lower, so even fewer boats visit and those already on it leave, making the level lower still, until any boats that are left are stuck on the bottom and can't leave at all.

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  • 5 weeks later...

We came off the Ashby on Sunday. The first 2 or 3 miles after Marston Junction were the worst, with levels low enough that anything much above tick-over wasn’t really viable as it led to breaking wash and the propeller stirring silt. It seemed as though the nearer we got to Shackerstone the more water there was.

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When I travelled up and down a couple of weekends ago I found that Marston to Hinckley was OK and I could average 3mph on that section and also between Shackerstone and Snarestone which has been dredged. 
 

The middle section was slow going and was down close to 2mph average at times.

 

Someone else did remark to me that the south end was the worst of it but I didn’t find that to be the case for me.

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